


Weakness

by IcecreamNinja



Category: SHINee
Genre: Dealing With Loss, Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hanahaki Disease, Healing, Internal Monologue, Longing, Love, M/M, Memory, Miscommunication, Multi, Multi-POV, Other, Philosophy, Polyamory, Repression, Romance, Sexual Tension, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Warning: deals with death and mourning, becoming whole again, psychologucal complexity, supression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:23:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcecreamNinja/pseuds/IcecreamNinja
Summary: A series of intertwined vignettes that explore SHINee dealing with love, death, aspiration and being human.「After Jonghyun’s passing, the members struggle with their feelings. But by confronting them and each other honestly, they can move forwards.. and realise that they never have to leave Jjong behind, because he’s a part of their lives forever」





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Multi-POV: Minho, Kibum (more to follow..)
> 
> This work has, perhaps somewhat inevitably, shifted its thematic emphasis quite a bit since it’s original inception before December last year. It has become something of a cathartic exercise for me so I can deal with Jonghyun’s passing. Therefore yes, Jonghyun’s death is mentioned... so please don’t read if you’re not ready.. I just had to get this out.
> 
> *TRIGGER WARNING* deals with mental health issues, illness and death (Jonghyun's RL death specifically, as well as philosophically).

Choi Minho doesn’t consider himself weak-minded.

In fact, he’d go as far as to say most people would describe him as decidedly strong-minded: strong in heart, body _and_ spirit.

Yes, he knows that he’s strong- deep in the roots of him- when he manages to eat nothing but chicken breast and broccoli for three months in order to chisel away that last 2% of undesired body fat for his special talent in SWC4.

Or when he always texts _“of course, count on me!^^”_ in response to practically every favour he’s ever been asked.

Or even when he forces himself to wake at dawn each day, despite the inevitable exhaustion, to run in the brightening twilight of birdsong and mist.

He does it to be his best. Because- deep in the roots of him- he knows that he has to be. Because he fears being weak; fears not being there for the others when they need their anchor.

Fears being _not enough._

But, you see, it’s actually more complicated than that. Weakness in itself isn’t the problem: Minho has read and thought enough about such things to recognise weakness as a necessary aspect of the human condition. Weakness helps him gain the strength he desires, just like wrongness helps him know what is right. There is (contrary to popular belief) enough of the casual philosopher in Minho to ensure such ruminations.

The problem is this: he’s beginning to wonder why it is that the stronger he gets, the more vulnerable— the more distracted — he feels?

Choi Minho has been denying certain things for a long time.

His attention wanders. A lot. And so he calls it his weakness. And it’s not the useful kind of weakness, but rather the kind the grabs you by the throat and stares you down in the middle of the night until your eyes are gritty and your temples ache and the grey sunrise presses like a sullen hand upon the window pane...

It’s not that he’s lax in his obligations, either (Minho never could be: his mother and more particularly his father had made sure he’d learned the value of a turned down bed; a tidy room; the well ordered life that invariably reflects the well-ordered soul)— it’s that he’s stuck on something. Something like a song lodged in his brain, that can’t be silenced. Something?

Them. Him, particularly.

Like if he willed himself to move past these feelings his body itself would drag his attention back to its circular contemplation of the one thing his weak, stupid mind was telling him he needed, wanted...needed so much...

Minho sighs. Bites his bottom lip. He rubs his palm over his face and unscrews the plastic bottle clasped too tightly in his hand.

Ten minutes of break time left, he calculates, and then it’ll be back to sweating it out in front of the studio mirror with the others. Giving it his all, ‘cause— _isn’t he hilarious?_ — That’s the only measure in which Choi Minho knows how to give _anything._

Back to laughing and poking fun and waving away little mistakes (the kind of mistakes the fans will like on YouTube, right?); pretending that every time he reaches a part of the choreography that’s already bled into second nature, he doesn’t let his gaze slide from his own reflection to settle on the familiar contours his...weakness. Weaknesses.

Them. 

But he won’t let these preoccupations bloom. He knows he cannot. So Minho tips the bottle vertical and empties it down his parched throat.

“I’m going to the vending machine,” he mumbles, and leaves the room.


	2. Chapter 2

There are some things of which Kim Kibum has always been potently aware. The importance of friends is one thing. The vital need for his own space is another. Then there’s his need to stay humble; to work hard, remain true and not take anything for granted. All these he knows as well as his own reflection. These are his… Key Principles (pun intended). His lip curves into a smile despite himself.

Despite the weight of his predicament.

They’re on a water break. His eyes had closely followed Minho’s exit from the room. He seems uneasy. Like all of them these days, Minho’s demeanour feels off to Kibum (and Key could write volumes on thespecific subject of Minho’s body language..)

But he won’t push Minho to talk to him. That’s not how they operate. That’s not one of his principles. And to his principles Key holds himself fast, so he can always remember who he is and what he is -or at least who he aspires to be, which is someone who strives to live in a way that causes no harm and no regrets. Someone who lives a happy life, doing well what he loves with the people he loves. 

Like anyone, really.

Only sometimes Key forgets how, at it’s heart, life is a thing unique to each of us. How we are all in some way fighting hidden battles every day, regardless of appearances to the contrary. He forgets this, despite how taken up he is with obscuring his own small truths; his own discrete tragedies that press upon his heart with the weight of deep, deep water.

And the hardest part of all this is the guilt. It’s crushing. Because what right does he have to such weakness? What right to nurture his private woes when the bigger, harder tragedy that weighs on all of them is so much more important? So all-consuming?

But try as he might to suppress his selfishness, Kibum is drowning in the quiet knowledge that there is one thing..one person.. he needs more than anything else. A truth a younger Kibum would never have either realised or admitted..

Minho. He needs Minho, the consistent bane and light of his life. His weakness and his strength. Whose ridiculous laugh could fill a room - and fill his heart to bursting. Minho, with his startling warmth and contagious energy; his hatred of early mornings and passion for staying up late to watch the Premier League. Whose long-fingered hands would on a cold day so easily, so guilelessly, slip around his own to warm them. Guileless. Yes. Wholly. 

That was his Minho.

The same hands that had, on a winter’s day not so very long ago, steadied him in a sea of pale faced mourners; held him fast as the march of time pulled him farther and farther away from all that came before.. before..

 _Oh, Jonghyun._

Key stares out of the practice room window at a leaden sky, numb for now. In his hand rests a pale tissue, flecked with tiny spots of blood.He coughs, pain blooming in his chest as a small flurry of bloodied petals scatter over his palm. The blossoms had only recently begun to express, so he tries to do as the physician instructed him and breathe evenly, heaving carefully as his broken heart drags over the shattered glass of his hope.

*

_“Minho-“ he’d whispered, fingers curled into the black fabric of his suit, “I didn’t... we didn’t see.. how could I not have.. seen? Minho- this is wrong, wrong, this is all wrong, this was never meant to happen..”_

_Minho said nothing. He simply slid his forehead against Kibum’s as soon as they’d settled into the minibus seats, breathing out a stream of quiet reassurance. He had braced Kibum against his side and brushed his fingers through his hair. With his ear against Minho’s chest, Kibum listened to the rhythm of his heart as tears welled and fell, welled and fell…down onto Minho’s jacket to dissolve into nothing._

_Kibum tried to concentrate on how they disappeared into the dark fabric; he tried to concentrate on anything but the ugly, breathless void that now existed between the four of them._

_Opposite, Taemin leaned into Jinki’s shoulder. The eldest’s gaze was fixed upon some invisible thought; eyes dry and fathomless as the bus pulled away…_

*

“Let’s go again. Kibum, you ready?” 

Taemin is running on fumes today, Kibum knows, yet still burning to rehearse. He merely smiles in response, scrunching up his used tissue and burying it in the bin by the speaker system.

Minho re-enters the room, clutching a bottle of vitamin water and a carton of something else. He glances at Key and grins disarmingly, waggling a little carton of what Kibum can now see is coconut water. 

”Bummie! It’s for you. You look too sweaty.”

Key smiles and makes his way over to Minho to accept the offering.

”Stop buying me snacks, Minho. don’t even like coconut that much-“

 _Liar_.

”Liar. You love the stuff!”

Minho’s grin only broadens at Kibum’s scowl. Kibum drinks quietly and studiously avoids the impulse to watch Minho shrug on his sports hoodie.

The music starts as they take their places around the four cafeteria chairs, and all at once a kind of gentle, focused calm settles within Him as they move together once again, their motions fluid with growing familiarity.

Kibum feels Minho’s skin against his own when the choreography dictates they touch. But of course, Minho emphasises the contact in his own way: pulling Kibum into his personal tempo.. challenging him to give back everything he’s expressing with his body and heart..

Key throws himself into the dance, but he can’t quite meet the other’s eyes.


End file.
